The device works by passing an electrically charged, phenomenally sharp metal needle across the surface of a sample. As the tip nears features on the surface, the charge can "jump the gap" in a quantum physics effect called tunnelling.

The 242 frames of the 90-second movie are essentially maps of this "tunnelling current" with a given arrangement of atoms. It depicts a boy playing with a "ball" made of a single atom, dancing, and jumping on a trampoline.

"The tip of the needle is both our eyes and our hands: it senses the atoms to make images of where the atoms are, and then it is moved closer to the atoms to tug them along the surface to new positions," explained Andreas Heinrich, principal investigator at IBM Research in California, US.

"The atoms hold still at their new positions because they form chemical bonds to the copper atoms in the surface underneath, and that lets us take an image of the whole arrangement of atoms in each frame of the film.

Image caption
The movie studio for the world's smallest film - under high vacuum and held incredibly cold

"Between frames we carefully move around the atoms to their new positions, and take another image," he told BBC News.

It underlines the growing ability of scientists to manipulate matter on the atomic level, which IBM scientists hope to use to create future data storage solutions.

In early 2012, they demonstrated a means to store a digital "bit" - the smallest unit of information - using just 12 atoms, in contrast to the million or so atoms required by the device you are reading this on.

But A Boy and His Atom is, Dr Heinrich concedes, a bit of fun.

"This isn't really about a particular scientific breakthrough. The movie is really a conversation-starter to get kids and other people talking about - and excited about - math, science and technology."